Asuka, the Existing
by YoungBoch
Summary: Asuka delves into the philosophical and religious world as she tries to educate those around her. This is going to be harder than she thought...
1. On the Existence of God and His Nature

Asuka, the Existing

A/N – This could be a multi-chapter deal, or possibly just a one-shot depending on how people like this. This is aimed to those curious minds out there in the philosophical world. Hell, who knows? Maybe I'll help a few students out there in college that really can't get this crap. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: On the Existence of God and His Nature

"Hey Asuka, do you believe in God?" the two had been watching television for the past two hours on a Saturday morning, and even this was far from mentally stimulating to the boy. Asuka was far more wrapped up in her handheld video game to even notice his question, "Asuka?"

"Define God," she spoke in an annoyed voice. She hoped that the complex question would shut him up – not a chance.

"I don't know… the big guy up in the sky. Creator, all knowing, you know… God," she sighed as she turned off the game. This was going to be far from a short discussion.

"You mean the guy who tries to kill us on a daily basis? Yes, I believe in him, but I don't think he exists. I take it you believe he exists, don't you?"

"How can… you said you believe in him, but he doesn't exist. That's… a little crazy, Asuka. Seriously, what do you think?" it never ceased to amaze her how ignorant people can be with the things they apparently hold dear.

"That _is_ what I think. But that's why I asked you to define God, because for all I know you're talking about a three-toed sloth up in the sky eating leaves all day. Tell me if this is a good definition – God is a being than which no greater can be conceived," he stared at her like a deer in headlights, "In other words," she spoke with a huff, clearly annoyed, "He's the absolute top of the top. Nothing is better than Him, and you can't think of anything better than Him. Follow me so far?" he slowly nods, "Fantastic. Now, I'm going to use what's called _reductio ad absurdum_, which basically means I deny what I'm trying to prove."

"So you assume God doesn't exist?"

"So you are paying attention. Good. Yes, assume he doesn't exist. Now, assume that existence is perfection. I have a shiny new red sports car in my mind, and a shiny new red sports car in the driveway. Which would you prefer?" she didn't wait for him to answer, "The one in the driveway, because existence is perfection. But there's a line to be drawn – if I have the influenza virus in my mind and the influenza virus in a glass jar, which one would you want?"

"The one in your mind, I guess. So existence isn't perfection?"

"Wrong. Perfection for the _thing_, not for the things around it. For the virus, it existing would be perfect so it can go on, replicate, and be a happy little virus. So far, we have the statements that God doesn't exist, He is a being than which no greater can be conceived, and that existence is perfection. We're going to add one more, small detail – think of a being than which no greater can be conceived. I'm not telling you to think about God, think about a being than which no greater can be conceived. With me so far? Great. Now, if existence is perfection, and God doesn't exist, then you can conceive something greater than which nothing greater can be conceived. Right?" he slowly nods, and she throws a pillow at him, "Don't agree if you don't understand it! Listen, this is easy. God is a being than which no greater can be conceived. You understand that, at least. So, since God doesn't exist, he only is present in your mind as you think about a being than which no greater can be conceived. This is all fine and dandy, but then we say that existence is perfection. Well, if existence is perfection, then the being in your mind can have something greater than itself in the real world, which is a contradiction. Therefore, God _must_ exist," he stared at her with a blank look on his face for a good thirty seconds before responding.

"What about a book?"

"What, you mean the Bible? Using the Bible to prove the existence of God is like using The Deathly Hallows to prove the existence of Harry Potter, idiot."

"No, what about a book? Like, if I were to just say there's a book than which no greater can be conceived, couldn't I say a perfect book is out there? How many pages would it have? How thick would it be? Who would be the author? I just don't see how your argument makes sense…"

"For one, I'd never propose such a stupid argument, this is Anselm's. And two, he used the argument of _ad hoc_, which basically says that this argument can't be used for anything but God. Nothing else. No islands, no blades of grass, nothing. The reason for this is that when you say 'book', you're narrowing down the umbrella of things than which no greater thing can be conceived. In other words, you couldn't say the best book in the world, because then you're only talking about books. A car is better than a book, no? So his argument holds up, to an extent. But this wouldn't convince an atheist, since the argument is a little hasty when it says the definition of God," at this point, Shinji literally had a headache, but this was the first conversation he's had with the girl that lasted longer than thirty seconds and didn't end with him being hit. He endured it.

"So then what other argument is there?"

"Infinity," she replied without a moment's hesitation, "You know about the big bang and big crunch theories, right?" he shook his head, "You're useless… fine, the big bang is when the entire universe is all within a single point of infinite density. A massive explosion occurs, throwing matter in all directions, and essentially creating the universe. As this cools down over the span of countless billions of years, it condenses once again into that single point, and it all starts all over again. Many people believe that this is an infinite, circular cycle… complete bull, in my opinion. Sure, it may have happened a few times, but there _has_ to be a beginning. If this went on for infinity, then there would be no end, right? Well, for there to be no end, there can't be a beginning. It just goes on forever and ever, right? If there's no first action, then there's no second action, and then there's no third action, and so on. So if there was no beginning, our existence would be impossible," Shinji rubbed his eyes in annoyance.

"Hold on, back up… what?"

"This isn't hard. Look, you know basic math, right? Think about the graph of y equals x. It's just a diagonal line that intersects the origin. It goes on forever in both directions, so it is infinite. Let's say that line represents our universe – ignore the positive and negative axis, just go with it. If our universe is infinite, then there was no beginning. With no beginning, there's no first action. Without a first action, there's no second action. And so on and so on. It's kind of like dominos if you want to think of it that way. _Now _do you understand?" now slightly smiling, he nods, "Good boy. What conclusion do you draw from that?"

"God started it all!" she threw another pillow, and he silently wondered where the pillows were coming from.

"Wrong! How do you know it was God? How do you know it wasn't just some complex physics crap?" his shoulders slumped over, "Because physics could explain all that just perfectly, in theory. You need more than just the two arguments I gave you. I could give you a damn good explanation as to how we're all just imagining all of this."

"Wasn't that a movie? Like, the Matrix or something like that," another pillow.

"The Matrix was written by a few dudes to skimmed through a single philosophical argument and it's full of holes, so keep your mouth shut. I can prove to you that all motion is impossible, so you're just imagining everything. See that television? I'm an infinite distance away from it right now. I can never walk over to it – ever, ever, ever," like a confused puppy, he cocked his head, "Let's say I walk halfway to it. And now I walk halfway through the halfway – so now I'm three quarters of the way there. Now I walk halfway through the halfway of the halfway. Now I'm seven eighths of the way there. This will go on for infinity, and I'll never reach it. _Ever_."

"Isn't that just clever word play? I mean, of course you can reach it eventually if you ignore the math behind it."

"Math is an illusion, but we'll talk about that later. Are you ever _really_ touching something or ever _really_ at your destination, or are you just close enough to call it good enough? Everything you see is an illusion, and unlike the Matrix where you're a brain in a vat, you're just an illusion yourself. You, me, and everyone on the planet – which, by the way, is an illusion – are all part of something like a nirvana. We are all, and we are one. I guess the best explanation is 'My name is legion, for we are many' from the Gospel of Luke, Luke 8:30. This is called monism, and the only reason that we believe to be living separate lives is because we will it to happen."

"So… God is real…?" she sighed as she rubbed her eyes.

"He can't not be real," his silence told her he didn't understand in the least, "There are four modes of being. That which is impossible, that which is possible, that which is actual, and that which is necessary. For impossible, something can't be. For possible, something can be. For actual, something is. For necessary, something can't not be. It's possible that I can jump ten feet in the air, but not actual. It's impossible that I can jump over the Pacific. Think of a Venn diagram. Have one large circle be possible, another, smaller circle completely within the possible be the actual, and a much smaller circle completely within the actual be the necessary. Everything outside the possible circle is impossible. The actual circle is semipermeable – that is, things can pass from the possible to the actual, and from the actual to the possible. I was possible before conception, and then I was born, so I'm actual. One hundred years from now, I'll be dead, so I'll have moved back into the possible."

"So you're saying that the only necessary thing is God?"

"No, that's stupid. Things don't pass from actual to necessary like they do from actual to possible. Instead, things are formed in the necessary bubble every day. When I went to bed last night, there was no guarantee that I'd wake up this morning. It was possible, but not certain. When I woke up, suddenly the action of me waking up popped into the necessary, since I'm sitting here talking to a monkey right now."

"How… does this link to God?"

"I'm saying that God is within the necessary bubble. He was the _first_ necessary. Remember the infinite motion thing I was saying earlier? He was the first mover."

"Why would he be the first mover if he's sending down Angels to kill us? What would be the point of that?" Misato, who apparently had been standing in the hallway, finally spoke up. Asuka rolled her eyes as she smirked. The woman thought she was being cleaver. She was not.

"Johnson, _God and the Problem of Evil_. Who told you God is good? Just because he's a being than which no greater can be conceived doesn't mean he's not evil. Shinji has an excuse, but you don't. What the hell did they teach you in college? Look, take the example of an infant dying in a house fire. God couldn't have stopped it? He's God, he can do whatever he wants. Why didn't he stop it?" a few seconds pass before Misato snaps her fingers.

"He works towards a grander scheme!" Asuka spoke along with her in unison, crushing her moment of intelligence.

"That's fine and dandy to help Christians sleep at night, but if that were the case, every single bad event would end up positive in the end. Let's say I grow up and choose to make a habit out of going down to Africa, adopting some kid from a tribe, and killing them in secrecy. I do this my whole life, and no one ever finds out. In the end, I killed over thirty kids, and I die without anyone ever knowing. Where's the good in that? I can see how someone would manipulate the house fire with the infant's death to be positive – raise fire awareness and whatnot – but where's the positive in my killings?" Misato took a seat next to Shinji on the sofa, "Here's how it is. God is one of the following, and _only_ one of the following; all good, all evil, mostly good, or mostly evil. Now, by him allowing the infant to die, even if it was for a cause, that already rules out him being all good."

"Even if it was towards a grander scheme?" Asuka glares at the woman, "Humor me."

"He's omnipotent, apparently at least. He couldn't have found another way to raise fire awareness?" she didn't respond, "As I was saying… he can't be all evil because there is good in this world, so he must, at the very least, allow it to happen even if he doesn't directly cause it. So, that leaves us with either that he's mostly good or mostly evil," the girl stands up and stretches her arms above her head with a yawn, "I'll leave you two to think about that. Night."

"Y-You're just going to leave it there? Come on!" Misato stands up, clearly annoyed.

"I'll continue tomorrow, don't worry. I'll be damned if I'm going to be living with two ignorant children," and with that, her door closed.

A/N – So, yay or nay? Not so much an Eva fic as it is a story explaining some basic philosophical idea with Eva characters in it. If you think it's interesting and think I should keep going, let me know. I minored in philosophical studies all through my B.S., so I could go on for quite some time. If you _do_ want me to keep going and you have a topic you'd like covered, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Keep on keepin' on!


	2. Religions and Mathematics

Chapter 2: Religions and Mathematics

A/N - Hey all, sorry if you tried to read this earlier and you couldn't. I messed up when I uploaded it. It works now, though!

"Someone want to tell me why she's here?" Asuka lugged out of her room on the Saturday morning to see Dr. Akagi drinking a cup of Starbucks coffee, sitting on the sofa. Her, Misato, and Shinji all seemed to be waiting patiently for something. And then it struck her, "I swear, I didn't mean to break it," to this, Akagi raised an eyebrow.

"She's actually interested in what you have to say, Asuka. We'll go over what you broke later. Continue on from yesterday," Asuka sighed as Misato spoke, partly from relief and partly from annoyance, "I told her everything you told Shinji and I yesterday, so she's up to speed."

"Philosophy has always been an interest of mine, I've just never had time to study it. Please, do go on," rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Asuka fell back onto the large armchair they clearly left open for her.

"Okay, where was I… oh, God being evil," Akagi coughed on her coffee, "Oh, it looks like we have a devoted Christian on our hands. Don't worry, by the time I'm done, you'll be going to bed wondering where you are. Now, like I said, I ruled out that God was purely good by saying evil exists in the world, and I also ruled out that he's purely evil because there is good in the world. Now lies the matter of whether he's mostly good or mostly evil."

"I'm sorry, but I have to interject for a moment," Asuka wondered why Akagi actually raised her hand, "This is somewhat offensive to me."

"It's offensive that you're using your knowledge, the gift he gave you as a human? If anything, God would prefer a human that questioned his creator's actions over one that just followed blindly. Unless you have a question, don't interrupt me again. Before I start, I'm going to say that I will not touch on the subject of a grander scheme. My argument rests that the world will end in roughly half an hour, so his whole scheme is out the window. Got me? Good. I'm only going to look at a single example to prove my case; religion. At the very most, only one can be correct. Maybe Christianity is correct, or maybe it's Islam. Hell, it could be Judaism, we just don't know, but only one can be right. However, it's possible that none of them are right, but I'll get to that in a second. If God truly is omnibenevolent – that is, he loves everything – then that means he's letting the majority of the world go to Hell for following the wrong religion. Christianity is the largest religion alive today, and even they only have about a third of the world's population. On top of that, there's countless branches of Christianity, so it gets even more complex. How could he allow other people to follow the wrong religion?"

"People reject his word, though," none of them had any idea Akagi was such a devoted Christian… it didn't suit her very well.

"A tribe in Africa has never seen a crucifix, let alone heard about Christianity, so he's just letting them go to hell for no reason other than following the wrong religion. My point is that he apparently doesn't love us very much if he's willing to let us suffer so easily. That's like a mother letting her baby crawl into the deep end of a pool and saying 'Oh well'. It doesn't make sense. From there, it's basic math – at most, he's thirty-three percent good, since he's allowing that many people to enter Heaven. And that's if every single Christian follows his word to a tee – all six hundred and seventeen commandments worth," Akagi once again raised her hand, "Yes, there's that many. The ten you're familiar with were mainly for the Jews… well, at least the first six of them. So there you have it – he's mostly evil. Any questions?" the doctor raises her hand, "Any questions not having to do with religious bullshit you don't know anything about?" the hand goes down.

"Yeah, I have one. You said yesterday that God doesn't exist, but here you are talking about him like he's in the room. How?" Shinji spoke with a soft voice, worried that he might rub her the wrong way.

"He wouldn't soil himself by being on the same plane of existence as us. Imagine that you're God, and you look down on an anthill as humanity. You choose who lives and who dies. Would you walk among them? Would you even be at ground level with them? No, because you're above them. Same goes for God. He's real, but he doesn't exit – at least, not in our plane."

"So… which religion do you think is right? If you don't mind me asking," Asuka was surprised Misato didn't know this about her.

"I don't claim any religion. They're all right in some aspects. I agree with the Muslims on God's nature, I agree with the Jews on the afterlife and way of life on this earth, and I agree with Christians on God's wrath. Hell, I even agree with the whole Nirvana thing with Buddhists," they all stared at her blankly, "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" still nothing, "Damn it… okay, here goes. Muslims believe basically what I just said about existence. They don't believe in some bearded guy up in the sky – they think he's omnipresent, yet indivisible. He's in all of us, yet in none of us. It takes years to actually comprehend what I'm saying, so don't try. Jews, at least the traditional ones, don't believe in an afterlife. When you die, you die. That's when the whole Holocaust ordeal went down it was so bad. For Christians, at least you have an afterlife. For them… that was it, man. By the way, Holocaust is somewhat of an insult. It's a German word literally meaning 'fire blast'. The real name for what went on is Shoah. In fact, that's commandment number six-fourteen; Remember Shoah."

"It's a commandment?"

"Of course. It was written down in the Torah. How do you people not know this?"

"What's a Torah?" Shinji asked what everyone else was thinking, and she laughed just a little.

"Torah is part of Torah," all three people cocked their heads, "Okay, listen, the Jewish law is extremely complex. People spend their entire lives studying it. All of their books could easily fill the walls of this house, but here's the simplified version. There's two major sets of Jewish books – the Torah and the Oral Torah. In the Torah, there are two major sections; the Tanakh and the Midrash. Tanakh is essentially the bible, and the Torah is part of that. This Torah within the Torah consists of the first five books, known as the Pentateuch. After the Torah is the Nevim, which are the stories of the prophets and histories. Finally, the Ketuvim are the writings, and included in this are the Koholeth, which are the Wisdom Books. These books you don't even pick up until you know everything there is to know about Judaism. In the Oral Torah, more formally known as the Mishneh Torah, it tells a Jew how to live. When to farm, what soil to use, how to cook, how to clean, where to sit, how to sit, how to raise children, how to make laws, and so on. They all fall in one of the following categories: knowledge, seeds, love, seasons, separations/vows, women, damages, holy things, and the purity code. I don't pretend to know all of that stuff, so I won't try to explain it. With me so far?" by now, all three people are looking for some kind of hidden booklet she has somewhere. To them, her storing this much information was just too out there.

"What about Islam do you know?" finally, it looks as if Akagi was getting into the conversation.

"Heh… quite a bit. Okay, first, we need to make a distinction. Christianity is what's known as an orthodoxy – or 'right teaching'. Judaism and Islam are known as orthopraxy – or 'right actions'. Notice how there's not a millions branches of Judaism and Islam, but there is for Christianity. I can't say I know much about Judaism, but in Islam, there are only two branches; the Sunni and the Shia, and they're only branches by the way they conduct themselves in Ijtihad, which I'll go over in a second. First, we need to go over the Qur'an. Akagi, how would you feel if you were forced to watch the pope burn alive along with the rest of the Vatican?" she paled just slightly, "Yeah, that's not even a quarter of what it'd be like to destroy a copy of the Qur'an. The way Jesus was Word made Flesh for you, the Qur'an is the Word made Text. The entire Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel through Allah in Arabic – which, by the way, is considered the language of Allah. So, the Qur'an is literally what Allah said to man, and the Sunna was what was written about Muhammad and how he lived his life. The Sunna is how a Muslim should behave, pretty much, but it is not the word of Allah. The Hadith is the formalized version of Sunna, which direct linages on who said what. The act of legitimizing Hadith is known as Isnad, which is basically historiography. From here, we have the Fiqh, which is the act of understanding the rituals, morals, and legal aspects of the Qur'an. Finally, we have the Sharia, which is basically the Islam equivalent of Mishneh Torah. Follow me so far? Any questions?"

"One," Misato, like Akagi, raised her hand, "What's Mishneh Torah again?"

"How Jews should live their life, remember? Try to stay with me. Bring a notebook next time. Moving on, we now have the Ijtihad, which is a type of philosophical reasoning used by Muslims to develop new law in accordance with the times. This is what sets the Sunni and Shia apart… at least, in modern times. The Shias are the ones keeping this alive, while the Sunni completely reject it, saying that it's an abomination. Those who reject this are known as Salafists. Okay, that does it for religion for now. You all ready for some hardcore math?" Akagi's face brightens up as she pulls out a small notebook and pen from her pocket.

"Now this I can keep up on! I went up to Matrix Theory in college, so I think I'm pretty good."

"That's it? Jeez, I thought I was low. Put away the paper, Akagi, I can test circles around you," the doctor raised an eyebrow, "I went up to Complex Variable Theory. Plus we won't be doing anything past algebra. Hell, we won't go past counting to ten. I have a question for you all – what is two?" the all just looked at her, "I'll wait."

"Two is… two. Like, one, two. Two," Asuka literally got a headache at the boy's answer.

"That's just fine and dandy in the math world, but in the real world, _what is two_?"

"Dualism," Akagi chimes in, now determined to beat the girl.

"There it is! Great definition. You get a banana sticker. Later, though. Now, imagine a universe in which only one thing exists – let's say a proton. And don't pull out fancy physics crap with me, I know there's quarks within a proton, that's not the point. Imagine you can't cut it in half, and you can't destroy it. There's only one thing… does dualism exist?"

"Yes," Misato chimes in, "Because it's just a definition. We have a definition for a unicorn, but they don't exist," Asuka claps her hands with a smile.

"Glad to see you're all thinking now. You get _two_ banana stickers. The unicorn's definition exists because we stuck a horn on a horse and gave it a new name. What if horses didn't exist? You'd have trouble explaining a unicorn. In this universe, only one thing exists, so there's nothing else to make impressions about dualism," Akagi crosses her arms.

"Fine then, Ms. Knowitall, you said yourself that our universe is finite. That means if I wanted, I could go around and count every single proton, neutron, and electron in the universe and have a finite, but very, very large number. Right?" Asuka just nods, knowing where she was going with this, "And yet we can conceive of a number greater than that. For any number, there's always one more than that number. That's basic math, missy."

"You know what else is basic math? A number more than what exists is useless. I could say that there are ten blades of grass growing out of my hand. Are there? No, so the number is useless. You're thinking too deep, Akagi, try harder. I think Misato has it, and Shinji hasn't had a stroke yet, so I think he's okay. The number two exists in the universe with one thing, but does dualism? The answer is no, because there's nothing to compare it to. It really is as simple as that. Now, as Misato brought up, unicorns are fascinating. Or, at least, the idea of them is. We all have seen a horn – maybe on a rhino. We all have seen a horse. But have you seen a unicorn? No, but I bet you have an awesome picture in your mind about one. For me, it's a robot unicorn that enjoys listening to Blind Guardian," once again, deer in headlights, "Blind Guardian? A German band? Like, one of the founders to power metal?"

"Another Stranger Me. Hell of a song. Move on," her and Misato exchanged a knowing smile.

"Anyway, we get all of these ideas through impressions from the world. Think of an impression on a literal sense – like your mind is a lump of clay, and the world is putting an impression on it. You use those impressions to form ideas, such as unicorns and their badass taste in music. What are formed out of impressions are ideas, and these ideas are complete subject to logical fallacies scientists use on a daily basis. Physics? Complete assumptions. Mathematics? Nothing but scribbles on paper. Cause and effect? An illusion."

"Hold on, now you're stepping over the line. You can't say physics is a lie, they're actual laws that have been proven," the only scientist in the room speaks up.

"Laws? No such thing. Sure, they've been tested, but have they been tested under every possible scenario? No, they haven't. Look, say there was a three year old in here and as he grew up for seven years, every day I'd drop a pencil. When I dropped the pencil, a balloon across the room would pop. After only a few times, the child would assume that the cause is the pencil dropping, and the effect is the balloon popping. Somehow, they're related, at least in the child's mind. Of course, we think this is nonsense, because we know better… or do we? We observe cause and effect on a daily basis. I stub my toe on a table, and it hurts. I hit Shinji, and he screams. Misato has a few too many beers, and she passes out. We see this as cause and effect, but how do we know the effect is linked to the cause? We just assume it is. Sure, we have little mathematical formulas for certain cause and effects, but under the right conditions, they're all just bull crap."

"Newtonian Physics," this actually surprised Asuka how quickly Akagi brought up such a stupid argument.

"Yeah, he was clever, but wrong. His 'laws' work only under certain conditions – once things get too big or too small, they all go away. Hell, when things get too hot or cold they go away. His laws only work under extremely specific circumstances… crappy laws if you ask me. Look, you know about that whole experiment with the bowling ball and the professor, right?" Akagi was the only one to nod, "It goes like this; a physics professor just got to the conservation of energy with his class. To prove a point, he sets up a pendulum in the middle of the room with a large, fourteen pound bowling ball at the end. He stands on one side of the classroom and lets it go, making sure not to push it. It swings over to the other side of the room, gaining considerable speed, and hurls back into his face… but it doesn't even touch his nose. The entire time the ball was moving, he made sure to not move so much as a centimeter. This is because of conservation of energy. He could do this a hundred times and be just fine, but it's all based off cause and effect. We can predict the future with certain degrees of freedom, this is how he knew he wouldn't be hurt, but if cause and effect were as black and white as what scientists would have you believe, we would know absolutely everything about our future, not just about bowling balls."

"So, then you're saying numbers are… pointless?" Shinji was close to comprehending what she was saying, but not quite yet.

"Oh no, they have a point. Without math, we wouldn't have engineering, and without engineering, we wouldn't have… well, anything. No, they have a point, but they aren't really _real_. I'm not just being a smart ass here – numbers are nothing more than representations of things in the real world, but representations are pointless in our mind. Like, Shinji, I have this little spider monkey in a plug suit in my mind that represents you. And Akagi, you're tortoise in a lab coat. Do these representations mean anything to the real world? Of course not, that'd be ridiculous. My point in all of this is that dualism can't exist in a world with only one object. And Monism can't exist in a world without any objects. And like Akagi said, there's a finite number of things in this universe. We could _define_ (insert number here)-ism, but we couldn't truly understand it because we haven't had the impression of it."

"I… guess that makes sense…" the three pillows from yesterday laid behind Shinji, and a fourth one just hit his head.

"I don't remember buying those…" Misato scratched her head.

"No, it doesn't make sense! Sure, from a philosophical standpoint, this all is just fine and dandy, but in the real world – you know, where we _live_ – it's complete insanity. Of course there's two! Jeez, you all need to think harder, seriously," she stands up and walks to the kitchen, "Shouldn't you two be at work?" Misato looked down at her watch as both her and the blonde whispered curses under their breath, "I'll continue later, then."

A/N – So, in case you missed it, the topics of today's lecture were religions (hardly philosophical), numbers and –ism's, and impressions. Remember, reviews are always appreciated and responded to! If you need me to clear something up or you want me to go into more detail next chapter, feel free to ask. I think I'll just keep on going with this so long as you guys review… it's not really a story, so I can see how people would lose interest. Next lecture: Colors, Perceptions, and Pillows. Keep on keepin' on!


	3. Colors, Perceptions, and Black Metal

Chapter 3: Colors, Perceptions, and Black Metal

"… you're all serious?" no more than thirty seconds after the girl exited her entry plug from the sync test, she was surrounded by the majority of people she knew from Nerv: Akagi, Maya, Misato, Shinji, Rei, even Gendo.

"Dr. Akagi said you're quite insightful. We'd all like to hear what you have to say," the German rubbed her eyes.

"You do know you're asking for wisdom from a fourteen year old, right?" not a word, "Right then. Can I at least change first?" within half an hour, she was back in her school uniform and standing at the podium of a small auditorium she didn't know existed in Nerv, "You're all insane… what do you want to know?"

"You mentioned perception when I was over last time," the majority of people had a notebook in hand, "Would you mind going over that?" Asuka couldn't believe that the greatest minds in Japan – the ones who were supposed to be saving the world – were asking _her_ for insight. Insanity.

"Fine… the first person to really, _really_ consider perception was Plato. He created a pyramid of sorts, and it goes like this; at the top is good, which is normally seen as God. Under good are concepts like holiness, just, true, beautiful, logical, and so on. Under this are objects… like, a ball, or a human, or a cat, and so on. Under that are shapes and numbers which help define the objects. Under that are things, which are pretty much impressions in our mind. Finally, we have images, which is what you're seeing at the moment. We're all born with the ability to comprehend everything up to and including objects, but going beyond that is quite difficult. Can someone tell me something beautiful?" without missing a beat, Rei chimed in.

"Chamber music."

"Good. Anything else?" Gendo was next to come in.

"Glasses."

"Creepy, but good. Give me one more," finally, Misato answers.

"A nice cold beer after dinner."

"And for breakfast and lunch… good. Let's start off easy – glasses can be beautiful to the visual senses, either through fashion or actually guarding our eyes. The invention really is beautiful, if you think about it. Hell, the object can even make other people beautiful by adding aesthetically pleasing qualities to them. Now, look at the beer. It's pleasing to a number of different senses – touch, taste, sight, even hearing. Now we go into something much more abstract – music. Music is what humans have created to help express themselves in ways they may not have been able to do otherwise. It's beautiful in the sense that it just sounds pretty, but this is very subjective," she pulls an MP3 player out of her pocket and holds the headphones up to the microphone in front of her. An extremely intense metal melody echoes through the room at piercing volume, causing a few people to cover their ears. After a few seconds, she removed the headphones, "That was Hell Awaits by Cradle of Filth. Personally, I find that music beautiful, but judging by a few of your reactions, it was just a bunch of people slapping the frets on their guitars while some little girl screams. I'm not the only one that found them beautiful, either – they've sold millions and millions of albums since they formed. How can this be? How can my definition of beautiful be so different from yours?"

"You were just raised differently. You were exposed to different things that made you perceive the world the way you do now," Maya thought she had hit the nail on the head. In reality, she just broke her thumb.

"Perception we'll cover later, but I'm talking about beauty. Let's try this – someone define beauty."

"A field of flowers," Akagi answers a little quicker and with more enthusiasm than really necessary.

"An arsonist would love nothing more than to watch that field burn, so to him the destruction of flowers is beautiful. Anyone else?"

"The Mona Lisa," Rei sure was showing her more artistic side today.

"God, even I find that chick ugly. She has no neck, seriously? But back on topic, all of you are giving me actual _things_ that are beautiful. That's like defining a book by showing another book. It doesn't make sense. Can anyone define beauty?" complete silence, "Tell me how this tickles your fancy – beauty is anything that is pleasing to one or more of the senses," she saw a few people nod, "Okay, now picture someone you find extremely attractive, but make sure it's a real person. I'm sure you'd consider them beautiful, right? Tell me, what senses are they pleasing right now? You can't hear them, you can't feel them, you can't taste them, you can't see them, and you can't smell them. And yet they're still pleasing. How is this possible?"

"We create false sensations within ourselves. They may be false, but they are powerful enough to evoke true feelings."

"Well, Rei, I don't know who you're picturing, but I'd like to meet and mount him. You're telling me that your imagination is making you believe false things? You said that the image creates false sensations. I completely agree – just look at dreaming. But then you went on to say that these false sensations evoke true feelings… but if you pictured the boy… or girl? Anyway, if you pictured them, then there's no true stimuli to go on. So then true feelings emerge from that… wouldn't you already have feelings for the person if you thought of them in the first place?"

"That doesn't make sense. Every person can get a physical reaction if they think about someone they find attractive. I won't go into details, but you get my point," it's about time the doctor started using her knowledge.

"True, but then the image isn't pleasing you, you're pleasing yourself," Akagi blushed at the statement, "My point is that things like beauty, logic, love, hate… they're all subjective. I'm not saying they don't exist – don't get me wrong – I'm saying that they are beyond the understanding of most people. Beyond the understanding of the vast majority of people, even. And God is beyond even that. But, notice how logic is in the spectrum most of us can't reach… and yet you use logic to reason things about the world. Can someone tell me what red is?"

"Light with a wavelength of anywhere from 600 to 800 nanometers," once again, the concrete answer of the doctor.

"Great, but you just gave me a physical interpretation of red. That's akin to me handing you a stack of paper, some ink, and some cardboard and calling it a book. So, once again, what is red? Assume I'm colorblind for red. Instead, I just see orange or something. Explain what red is to me," the room was completely silent outside of Gendo stroking his luxurious beard, "My point with this is that as soon as you start dissecting things, everything becomes incomprehensible. Which is why you can logically say, for instance, movement is an illusion or none of us exist. What we're going right now is called epistemology, which is understanding understanding. No, I didn't just stutter. Do we understand why we understand? Quick, what is two plus two?"

"Four," Misato perks in.

"Great, banana sticker for you. Why?" Misato widened her eyes, "This isn't a trick question. Why?"

"Well… because…" she holds up two fingers from each hand and puts them together, "Four."

"You just lost your sticker. The correct answer was addition. I told you it wasn't a trick question. It's pretty easy to understand why we understand addition. If I have two apples and Rei gives me three, now I have five. That's just basic logic. But I'm willing to bet that all of you think you understand what a color is. Let's leave red alone, I want to change it up a little. Think about blue. Just blue – not cyan, not turquoise, not navy, just _blue_. I'm willing to bet that the majority of you are thinking about the same color right now, and you'd be able to recognize the color if you saw it out in the world because you understand it. But do you understand why you understand it? And look at something more complex. Do you understand why you understand how you think? In other words, you know that you think. You're doing it right now, I hope. So, you understand that you think. Do you know _why_ or _how_ you think? And Akagi, don't be a smartass and bring up neurons, because that's just cause and effect and, like I proved yesterday, that's complete nonsense."

"Our souls," Shinji finally spoke up.

"Heh… our souls… okay, I want to talk about that, but first let me wrap up understanding understanding. You can't. It's as simple as that. You can understand something, and you can probably understand why someone else understands something, but you can't understand why you understand something. Now, before we talk about souls, let me talk about the things that carry around souls. Until further notice, I'll be talking as if I were Aristotle. I don't believe this stuff, but you need to know it to understand understanding. According to him, anything that breathes has a soul. Plants, animals, humans, and so on. Humans have a human shaped soul, roses have a rose shaped soul, and cats have a cat shaped soul. With me so far? Great, because this is where it gets confusing. If you're breathing, you have a vegetative soul. If you have an appetite, then you have an appetitive soul. And, finally, if you have reason then you have a rational soul. This brings into question about people in comas and whatnot… yeah, according to him, they had a vegetative soul. Now, in order to define anything breathing, you _have_ to include its soul somehow. There's a dead body in the middle of the room – is it human? No, it's just a sack of meat in the shape of a human. What made it human, the soul, has departed from the body and is no longer defining the meat as human. Any questions?"

"So do we learn through our souls?" Maya raised her hand as she spoke.

"Good question, but frankly, he never went over that. He came to the following conclusion – probably. But that wasn't his goal. He was trying to understand what makes life living. From the definition of souls, he also brought up how to define something based off of what you actually see. In short, there are four causes; formal, material, efficient, and final. The formal cause refers to what allows you to recognize a thing as it is. Look at my skirt – you know it's a skirt because you've seen skirts in the past, and you're comparing those to mine in a split second, allowing you to label this as, indeed, a skirt. If I were to go to another planet and they only had pants, they'd have nothing to label a skirt, so they'd have no formal knowledge of it. Pretty simple, so far. Now we have the material… also pretty easy. What's my skirt made of? Probably a polyester and cotton blend. Here's the last easy cause: efficient. What made it? Well, probably some machine. Now, here comes the hard part, so are there any questions?"

"All of this seems very… trivial," Rei spoke through her seat in the back.

"You're right, it is, but like I said, here's the hard part. The final cause of something is why it was made in the first place. At some point in human history, we thought that skirts were needed for women for some reason or another. After all, you don't just make something for the hell of it. Even abstract art serves some kind of purpose. Why did we deem skirts necessary? What was wrong with pants? Or for that matter, why don't men just wear skirts? They're damn comfortable, right?"

"Right," the room went silent for a moment when Gendo spoke up. He managed to keep his stone cold stare.

"Now I see where Shinji gets it… but yeah, that's my point. At some point, I'm sure skirts served a purpose, but now? Nothing much, in my opinion. But, back on the topic of Aristotle and his rules for existence. When we look at something, regardless if you know what it is or not, you recognize that it exists. This is called ousia; the trinity of being, existence, and substance. You can't have being and existence without substance, you can't have existence without substance and being, and so on. You need all three for something to be ousia. Now, let's say I have a set of A, B, C, D, E, and F. If I take C out, does the set still exist? Of course. If I chop off my hand, I just took off a part of me, but I still exist. The four causes of my hand are no longer valid, because the final (that is, the purpose) is no longer being fulfilled. But me as a whole is still fine. How many pieces can I cut off before I'm no longer human? Well, by my definition earlier, I'm no longer human when I die. So there you go. What I was just talking about is the emergent property. How much of something must happen before you label an event?"

"So… how many body parts would you lose before you die?" Shinji was apparently quite concerned with her body.

"Sort of… yes. Okay, if I hear one German crack, I'm throwing chairs, got me?" silence, "Good. How many people of one group need to die before it's called a genocide? How many guns need to be produced and stored before the building becomes an ammo dump? And, just for you Asians out there, how many grains of rice are needed before there's a meal? Do you see where I'm going with this? This is called the emergent property, and it's what Aristotle concluded. Now, would someone like to tell me what the opposite of the emergent property is?"

"_Nihil ex nihilo fit_?" all heads turned to Rei.

"Wow… yeah, she's right. That's Latin for 'nothing comes from nothing', and it sounds simple at first… but it's far from it. It says that even the smallest of actions have effects, and the only thing to not have an effect is nothing."

"Hold on, you're contradicting yourself. You said cause and effect is an illusion," Asuka was really growing to hate the doctor.

"I also said my explanation makes sense philosophically, but not logically. Can I continue?" once again, silence was restored, "Thank you ever so much. Now, nothing comes from nothing only applies to the physical world, which is where pure form comes into play. What is the purest possible form? What form can't be affected by its matter, and the form followed from existence instead of existence following from form? This is God, and the closest thing to it is our own thoughts. Thinking lacks materiality, but we know very well that it exists. However, our thoughts have what's called potency, as does everything else in existence. How many times can I drop a marker before it breaks? Hundreds, maybe thousands of times, but it will break eventually. Thoughts are the same way – they fade with time. What we need is something that has infinite potency, but also has form. However, if it has form, it also has matter, which means that God can't possibly have form… not even in the supermatter sense (by which I mean the stuff our thoughts are made of). The only way he could exist is to be on another plane all together."

"Finally!" Shinji threw his hands in the air and, subsequently, his pencil, "I asked you this question _three days ago_, and you're just now coming to a conclusion. Thank God…"

"… that was a conclusion? Where did I prove he has to exist? I just told you how he would exist if he did," his eyes got wide.

"B-But the first motion! A-And planes on existence!" she raised an eyebrow at him, "A being than which no greater can be conceived!"

"First motion can be explained through physics. Something I'm sure Akagi could do – physics isn't my thing."

"She's right," for once, Akagi was helping.

"Planes of existence also exist… more physics. There's an infinite number of universes out there; it's called the string theory."

"Right again."

"And the ontological argument was made by Anselm as a prayer to God, not an actual argument to be discussed. It's absolutely full of holes. Yes, I told you that God can't not exist, but I also told you that things can pop into and out of the necessary bubble as time goes on. He could have existed at one point, but who's to say he didn't wish himself gone? He is omnipotent, after all," the girl begins to walk off stage, "Now, who's buying me lunch?" adjusting his glasses, Gendo stands up.

"I'd like to hear your opinion on forms of government and which is most effective. Is sushi alright?"

"If I'm going to continue my lesson, you're going to have to do better than sushi. Steak it is," they both walk out of the room, and after a moment's hesitation, the rest follow… all except for Rei, who was still recovering from a small brain hemorrhage.

A/N – As Cyber-Undead pointed out, I tried to make the topics flow better along with keeping the number of topics to a minimum throughout the chapter. I know it seemed like a lot of information, but the topics of today's lecture were the nature and forms of matter, thought processes, and perceptions. And frankly, perceptions and thought processes are kind of the same thing. There was also a short recitation at the end to help you think harder! I'll see you all next chapter, and it will be a doozy. I dug up all my old philosophy notes, and the next chapter will be... intense, to say the least. Check out the next chapter, Eternal, Infinite, Alphabet; until then, keep on keepin' on!

A/A/N – By the way, for you non-college folk, a recitation is pretty much where the teaching assistant (the person under the professor) helps clear up a few things outside of class at a scheduled time and place.


	4. Morality, Flying, and Steak

Chapter 4: Morality, Flying, and Steak

A/N – Quick note; this chapter does contain 'proofs' of the falsehood of all theistic (believes in a god) religions. Don't get your panties in a bunch. Notice how I said proof in quotes. That means they're not real proofs, because a proof against religion is impossible. This is just to get you thinking deeper.

"And I'll have the sirloin steak, rare, with the side of a baked potato," Gendo paused for a moment while glaring at the girl.

"The bread is free, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll be having that, then," his stare never averted from Asuka.

"Hey, all the stuff I'm telling you… people pay thousands to take classes in it. The least I deserve is a nice steak dinner, don't you think?" she took a drink of her soda, "Okay, before we go into politics, I want to talk about being right and being wrong. Before I even start, let me get this out of the way – it is better to be indifferent than it is to be wrong. Being wrong is unforgivable, but being indifferent is… well, indifferent. Shinji, quick, is there an even or an odd number of blades of grass outside of the Geofront?"

"U-Uh, odd!" the stress got the better of him.

"What did I _just_ say? It's better to be indifferent! There's no possible way you know that there's an odd number of blades of grass. It is your ethical obligation to not state false claims, and even more so to not believe false claims. That goes for everyone here. Look, it's as simple as this; you take the chances of you being wrong, and the chances of you being right, and then go with the most probable one. Concerning the number of blades of grass, there's a fifty percent chance that you're right, and a fifty percent chance that you're wrong. However, obviously, very few circumstances in this life are this cut and dry. Can someone else give me a better example?"

"A man owns a boat and charges people to take them to trips out at sea," everyone turns to see Rei, just now arriving at the restaurant, walking towards the table, "He took the boat to a mechanic, and the mechanic said a few things. He said 'See that hole there? That's bad. And see this rusting? That's bad. And see that green stuff? That's bad'. The man says to himself, 'Oh, what does he know? He's just trying to take my money', so he takes the boat to a friend who happens to know a lot about maintaining boats. His friend says 'See that hole there? That's bad. And see this rusting? That's bad. And see that green stuff? That's bad'. The owner of the boat tells himself that the boat has been just fine for years now, one more trip won't hurt. The boat sinks, and everyone dies. Was he justified in his belief?" she sat next to Asuka and, with a casual nature most didn't know existed, took a drink of Shinji's water, "By the way, thank you all for waiting for me," she was paler than usual.

"Rei, why are you even here if you already know this stuff? That was the exact argument from Clifford's _The Ethics of Belief_!"

"I know nothing of philosophy, that just seemed like a logical argument. Please continue."

"Freak… fine, yes, that was a prime example. Can someone tell me why the owner _was_ justified in his belief?"

"Like Rei said, he took the ship out plenty of times before. It just so happened that it sunk this time around. Seems logical to me," this was far from an unexpected answer from Gendo. The way he cuts corners in funding is dangerous at times. Is a guard rail separating the bridge from the sea of LCL below that much of an expense?

"Very true. Now, let me augment the story a little bit. Let's say both his friend and the mechanic told him that maybe, just maybe, his boat will be just fine, but probably not. Was he justified now? Of course not – two professionals told him the chances of the boat being fine were slim. In his mind, the chances that the boat would be fine were extremely high, because he has all of these times before where it _was_ just fine. But in the real world, the chances were low, and so far he's just been lucky. This man had no right to believe in the evidence set out before him, and yet he did. Now, Akagi, don't get your pocket protector in a bunch, but here's another example. Christians have no right to believe in the God from the evidence presented to them. Same with Muslims and Jews. Like I alluded to earlier, believing in God based off of the Bible, Torah, or Qur'an is like believing in Harry Potter based off of The Deathly Hallows. Christians believing in God through the Bible is no different than the sailor believing in his boat through past experiences. So, that being said, do you all think that he was justified?"

"I… think you're stretching your examples a little bit," the only devout Christian in the room spoke up.

"How am I stretching them? Oh, let me guess, I can't use religion because of how serious people take it, right? The example fits perfectly. I'm not altering definitions or stretching anything, so it fits," Akagi and Asuka glare at each other, "Okay, rule change. I'm really sick of little miss Sunday School over here, so I'll be taking questions from her. Shoot."

"Excuse me, but I'm paying for-"

"Commander, with all due respect, please shut up," the doctor held up a hand for emphasis, "If anything, your little lessons have increased my perception of God."

"Really now? How so?" Asuka crossed her arms and shot a look Shinji knew all too well. He knew the defecation was about to hit the oscillation.

"You proved to me that He had to be the first mover – physics only explains the beginning of time, not the beginning of movement."

"Very true, but God is dead. Has been for a long time now, actually," Akagi's eyebrows actually rose, "Look, the universe can be infinite _and_ have a beginning. The beginning will just mark the start of an infinite amount of time. For infinite, something has to start it… would you say God is infinite? I know you're going to say no, at least not by my definition. For something to exist forever in the future and forever in the past, it must be outside of time – that is, eternal. Therefore, if God exists, He must be eternal. Rei, give me a definition of time."

"A quantitative unit of measurement for change," Asuka smirks without looking at Rei.

"You get a banana sticker later. Time measures change, for you monkeys out there. Now, if God is eternal, that means he is outside of time. If he is outside of time, then he is outside of change. Would you say that God never changes?" Akagi slowly nods, seeing where Asuka was going, "Good, neither would I. He's perfect, so why change? However, if he can't change, then that means he can't do the changing in our world. In order for me to inflict change on, say, this glass of soda, then I myself must change somehow – in this case, the change would be me reaching out to touch it. Now I'm sure you're thinking 'But Asuka, those are humanistic terms! God works in different means!', but you'd be wrong. I don't care if my example is in humanistic terms, the fact of the matter is that God has to be able to change if he is eternal. And, if he can change, then that means he's not eternal. But don't worry, because he doesn't need to exist. Free will is all an illusion, so he doesn't need to guide us."

"We're not going to talk politics today, are we?" Gendo spoke as the food was brought to the table.

"There's no free will, only a domino effect. How you think, how you act, how you perceive the world… it's all due to past occurrences," she cut into her steak with the small smile on her face. Rei nearly gagged at the sight of the extremely rare steak, "For instance, I may have chosen the rare steak, but it wasn't free will. I acquired the taste for raw meat when I would go hunting with my stepfather – we'd kill a deer, bleed it out, and just eat the meat while it was still warm. Once in a blue moon we'd make up a fire, but the only reason we'd do that is if the deer looked sick or something. I used to hate the taste of blood, but now that's the only way I'll eat it. I don't even like eating poultry or white meat because you can't have it rare. So, in essence, my stepfather made the choice for me. And whoever taught him to like it made the choice for him. Oh, and what if he made the choice on his own? I'm sure you're thinking that. What compelled him to eat raw meat? Something he was raised with. I'm sure you're familiar with the nature versus nurture effect in psychology, yes? Well, nature is a myth. It's all nurture," by now, Rei has silently switched spots with Shinji.

"That doesn't negate His existence."

"Very true, but what point would a God have if there was nothing to be done? All He could have done was start the universe… that's it. So there's a major hole in religion right there. Here's another one – there's no morality. People say that the moral code of children has gone down the drain since we took God out of school… let me tell you something. God doesn't teach morals, he puts fear into people. If I hold a gun to your head and tell you the sky is green, you have to believe me out of fear. You believe that what the Bible tells you is right is actually so out of fear of Hell and the pursuit of Heaven. Nowhere does it give an actual rationale as to _why_ things are right or wrong," by this time, the entire table could see that Akagi was more than a little annoyed.

"He doesn't have to explain to us why things are right or wrong."

"He doesn't have to, or He can't? Just as a recap, recall how I proved he can't be purely good. For those of you who weren't there, this is the gist of it – evil exists in this world, and if God is omnipotent, then he must allow the evil, and is therefore at least partially evil. And I also ruled out that he's purely evil because there is good in the world. But, the way I see it, if He really does exist, then these terms of good and evil don't really apply to him. We take on the definitions of good and evil based on out past experiences and what we've been taught. If God is eternal – or infinite, whatever you choose – then he was the first. If this is true, then the values of good and evil were never presented to him. His actions are neither good nor evil, they just are. Let's say I just killed someone. Is that evil?" everyone, Gendo excluded, nodded, "Great. Now let's say I killed that person to save the lived of nine others. Here's the story; I go to some foreign country just as ten people were about to be executed. For whatever reason, the executioner tells me that if I kill one person, he'll spare the rest. If I don't do this, all ten will die. Is it evil to kill the man now?"

"Human rights are natural, and are not additive. You must not kill the one man, for you will be taking his rights away. You can't kill him, even if it is protecting the rights of nine other men."

"Good explanation, Rei, but wrong. Almost all religions who believe in a God are convinced that he has a grander scheme in place… great. So, if God allows a person to die in a fire, then that death must naturally be required for the grander scheme. Didn't he have natural rights? If rights are not additive, then that one man's life wasn't worth the possible thousands it would save later on through the grander scheme. So, assuming any one of the major monotheistic religions, human rights _are_ additive. See how I just came up with an example on how it's perfectly okay to kill a person? If a measly little human – a young girl, for that matter – can come up with an example, then clearly the rules of evil and good God set in place are far from perfect and are extremely fickle. Therefore, I just found a contradiction… you all ready for some hardcore philosophy? I'll be using the statement P. It doesn't matter what P is, just go with it. For it to be a contradiction, P and not P (_A/N – not P will be referred to as ~P from now on)_ must be true. Now we say P or R. As an example, there's either a steak here or an elephant. There's a steak, so there's no elephant. If there's no steak, then there's an elephant. So far we have P and ~P, and P or R. Therefore, ~P implies R, and ~R implies P. Since both P and ~P are true, then that means R and ~R are both true. Since a contradiction exists in religion, you can come to any conclusion you want about the universe, assuming the religion is true."

"My head hurts…" Misato, now on her third beer, rubs her temples.

"Ethanol tends to slow the thinking process. Anyway, want a better contradiction? Here's a simple one. God is omnipotent, right? Great. I want him to make me fly. He can certainly do that. But, I want to be able to fly without any help – no wings, no magic, no voodoo, no magnets, and, get this, no help from him," silence was thrown over the table as she gave them time for that to sink in, "Simply put, can he help me fly without any help from him? If he's all powerful, then the answer is yes, but then that's a contradiction," she took the last bite of her steak with a smirk, "Delicious," with a huff, Akagi stood up and stormed out of the restaurant, leaving Asuka to bask in her victory, "This is philosophy – if she didn't want to think deeply, she shouldn't have come."

"Agreed," Gendo grabbed his fourth role of bread.

"When do I get my banana sticker?" Asuka raised an eyebrow at Rei's question.

A/N – A little shorter than usual, but all the details are there. The lesson plan for today covered contradictions, morality, natural human rights, and the nature of eternal. Next lesson will go over these same topics in more detail, along with more advanced topics. I'll see you all later, and keep on keepin' on!


	5. The Test

Chapter 5: The Test

A/N – Remember, ~ means 'not'. So, ~P means not P. If I were you, I'd write some of this down – it's a lot easier to visualize it that way. So, if Asuka is drawing something on the board, I suggest you copy it.

"You are to keep your eyes on your own paper," Asuka walked up and down the rows of desks as she palmed the slim stack of papers, "You have one hour to complete the exam. If you finish early, simply come up to the front and hand me your paper," roughly twenty bodies filled the room, and all were fiddling with their respective pens, "At the end of the hour, all pens must be put down," Asuka placed a single sheet of paper, face down, on each desk as she walked by, "Don't look at the test until I call time. You will need to use every bit of information I've given so far. If you pass with a C+ or better, you get to continue attending my lectures. If you get below that, you are forbidden to attend any longer. Does everyone understand?" silent nods, "Begin."

The past week has been quite… interesting for the redhead. She went from answering a seemingly simply question from the howler monkey she lives with to giving almost daily lectures in front of a class of roughly twenty students – and yes, they were actually students. To help narrow the pack, she decided to administer an exam to test their mental progress thus far. Darwinism, to be exact, for if they failed, they could not continue attending her class.

When the group of followers reached over fifteen, she chose to review everything she had said since the beginning so no one person was ahead of the others. As of today, which was a beautiful Saturday afternoon where any sane mind would be outside, all twenty-or-so of her students had the same amount of knowledge. At least, that's what she hoped. And yes, she hoped.

She would verbalize this by any means, but she has actually taken up the idea of teaching for a living. Not to anyone under the age of eighteen, mind you, but certainly become a professor at a university at some point in time. She enjoyed the power and pleasure of teaching… but that's a digression.

"Excuse me?" a woman who's name Asuka could never remember raised her hand, "I think this is a mistake. All my test says is 'Why?'… nothing else."

"Oh no, that's right. Feel free to write as much as you need. There's more paper up front if you need it," Asuka smirked to herself as she took a seat at the front desk and began to read over an old philosophy book of hers. By the end of the hour, all students had turned in the essay – some spanned five full pages, others only a couple paragraphs, but the shortest she had seen was a single paragraph. All complete garbage, and she didn't even read a single word yet. The last person in the room had, by now, completely ingested his pen cap and was making quick work on the end of the pen. With a sigh, Asuka called out, "Hour's up, turn it in, Third," to her surprise, he didn't whine. He didn't complain, he didn't beg, and he didn't even show a sign of weakness. He actually smiled at her as he handed over the test. She took one look at it and they exchanged a knowing smile that lasted no more than half a second.

"I think I did well."

"Go get everyone else. Tell them we have an impromptu lesson today," ten minutes later, all of her students were back in the class, "So, turns out I have to retract my statement about me kicking people out of the class. If I did that, I'd be left with Shinji, and not even Siddhartha could handle that," she grabbed the small stack of papers, leaving Shinji's on the desk, and abruptly tore them in half, "Complete trash, every single last one of them," several gasps were heard throughout the room.

"Y-You read them already? How?" a nervous yelp from the middle of the room somewhere. She didn't care.

"Didn't need to. Shinji, come up here and read your essay," she leaned against the desk and folded her arms. He did what he was told.

"… because…" he found it ridiculous that he had to stand up for a single word. The only sound that could be heard was Asuka clapping her hands. This lasted for about twenty seconds before Misato cut in.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me! I wrote three pages!"

"Look, you all may have written in-depth papers outlining deep philosophical thought, but the deepest thinker in this room, outside of myself, is clearly Shinji. The answer of 'because' covers absolutely every question possible. I didn't ask 'why' about a certain topic, so what could you possibly write about? Let me guess, the majority of you wrote about either cause and effect or the nature of questions, right?" most people nodded, "Wrong! That's only defining what 'why' means! Now, I don't know if the monkey did that on purpose or if he just stumbled onto it, but here's the gist of what he means, or at least _should _mean. This is extremely basic philosophy, by the way. If P, then Q. If ~P, then ~Q. Why Q? Because P. Why ~Q? Because ~P. Seriously, this is, like, third grade logic here. But it goes deeper than this. Remember how we had P or R, along with P, then Q? Well, the question of 'why Q?' can be answered by 'because P' _and_ 'because ~R'. The reverse can also be said. 'Why ~Q?' The answer is 'because ~P' _and_ 'because R'. Notice how I have the 'and' in there. Both things must be true."

"… this is such bull…" Kaji rubs his eyes. His paper was by far the longest in the class.

"Quite. But do you all see how anything, _anything at all_, can be put in the place of variables, P, Q, and R? Even if you described exactly what I just said, you must have put variables on instances, and I didn't ask for that. Shinji was the only correct one, and you all should be ashamed of yourselves. Here I thought he was the furthest behind. Okay, since every single one of you failed, we're going to have another lesson," a few sighs could be heard, "You're allowed to leave, you know," not a single movement, "Good. Now, someone tell me what makes you… you. Rei, go ahead."

"I am me. Uniqueness defines me – what is unique may not be known, but it exists," a few passing glances between the higher ups at Nerv didn't miss Asuka's attention.

"That's actually a very good definition, but I'm aiming to find what that uniqueness is exactly. Let's start with something simpler," she turns to the whiteboard behind her and uncaps a marker, "At the beginning of an oak tree's life, it's just a seed," she draws a long line, and on the left hand side of it, she draws a little dot, "There's the seed. Life progresses, and over time, it becomes a mighty oak," she draws, from left to right, a sapling, a small tree, a medium tree, and a large tree, "Excuse the bad art. Someone tell me how this tree," she points to the sapling, "Is the same individual tree as this tree," she points to the largest tree.

"The DNA within it?" Akagi knew right away that Shinji's answer was quite idiotic.

"Really now?" Asuka lifts up her left sleeve and points to an extremely small mole on her shoulder, "See that? Cancerous," a few gasps, "Really people? All moles are cancerous, it's just a matter of whether they can move and grow freely or not. Ask Akagi if you don't believe me. As you may or may not know, cancer cells have different DNA than a 'normal' cell. Hell, two normal cells right next to each other could have slightly different DNA. So clearly this isn't the answer. Anyone else care to try?"

"They all came from a single acorn," Gendo spoke from the back.

"Wrong again. I can break off a branch from a tree, put it in the ground, and within a few years I'll have another tree. They both came from the same acorn, but now they're clearly separate trees. Any other guesses?" silence, "Okay then, I'll throw out theories and you tell me what's wrong with them. What about being made of the same stuff?" Akagi raised her hand, "Same _particular_ stuff," the hand went down, "For those of you who didn't catch what just went on, consider this – two different oak trees are made of the same stuff. But each one is only made of a certain _particular_ stuff. Hell, at a fundamental level, everything in the universe is made up of the same stuff – protons, neutrons, and electrons. So, what's wrong with my theory?"

"You could make a desk out of the tree, use every part, and it'd still be the same particular stuff. So that theory doesn't work," Asuka gave Shinji a small smile.

"Very good. What about this; same particular stuff, and still living?"

"That goes back to breaking a branch off – now you have two tree made of the same particular stuff. So no," Asuka capped the pen, still smirking, and began walking over to him.

"Same particular stuff, still living, and undivided?"

"Actually, the very first premise is wrong – nothing living is made of the same particular stuff forever. All cells are eventually replaced… like, in humans, I think it's six years."

"Same soul?" she plants her hands on his desk, making him sweat. The look in her eye was both kind and yet somehow absolutely terrifying.

"Um…define… soul?" a moment of silence before she planted her thumb on his forehead and walked away, leaving a small banana sticker stuck to the boy's face.

"Very good. It seems as if defining a particular thing over time depends on the soul. We're not talking about the religious soul here, and if you don't believe in souls, you're not alone – I don't either. I'm a physicalist, but we'll get into that later. For now, assume souls exist. Rei, I would assume you've have the same soul from birth, right?" a slight nod, and more passing glances between a few selected employees, "Good. Can your soul change?"

"I would think not. A soul is super material… above the material we can interact with."

"Not bad. I agree… let me ask you a question. Did you watch cartoons when you were younger? Like, Spongebob, Teletubbies, and so on. Anything?" the girl didn't move, "Yeah, thought as much… let's just assume you did. So, the soul from when you were five who cared deeply about cartoons and candy now cares about… piloting? Whatever you care about now. So that would imply that the soul changed. Therefore, I propose that we all have additive souls – the soul you have today is the addition of the souls from yesterday, the day before, and so on. Any objections?"

"So what of Alzheimer's disease?" Asuka raised her eyebrows and smiled at Maya's question.

"Good! But that's complex, so we'll go back to it in a moment. I'll write it down so we don't forget," with the marker at the board, she froze, "Someone just remind me, I have no idea how to spell that. But let's take a much simpler example," she draws another timeline, with the following from left to right: a baby, a child, an adult, another identical adult, and an elderly man, "Once again, excuse the art. Now, we have this," she draws a dark line between the two identical adults, "That line represents a car crash that made the person have complete amnesia. They can't remember anything about their life before the crash. Are they the same person? On a purely physical level, sure they are, but are they really? Anyone care to comment?" a few moments of silence before Rei speaks up.

"Concerning souls, yes they are. For example, look at an apple – if I were to peel the apple and cut it into slices, the apple is still very much present, but in a different state. Same goes for the soul. It has been altered in some manner, but it is still the same soul."

"Not bad, but I'll have to disagree. You're using a physical example to explain a nonphysical occurrence. I propose to all of you that it's not the same soul. In fact, the soul I had yesterday isn't the same soul I have today. Going even further, the soul I had one second ago isn't the same soul I have now. The divisions go on forever. In the time it takes me to finish this sentence, I have gained and replaced an infinite number of souls. That's the only logical way I can state that the person before the car crash and the person after the car crash are the same person – without looking at their appearances, of course. Let's take a larger division, shall we?" she drawn a curved line above the child and the adult, connecting the two, "That line represents a new soul that has been passed from child to adult," she draws an identical line connecting the two adults, but this time puts an X on the line, "The souls that connect these two people are clearly broken, because something wrong has happened," finally, she draws an unbroken curved line between the adult and the elderly man, "And there we have it. First, let me explain the memory criterion. Anyone care to guess what that is?"

"X is the same person as Y if and only if Y can remember, from the inside, the thoughts, experiences, emotions, and so on of X," heads turn towards Shinji, "What? It makes sense to me!"

"No, you're right… for the most part. So, I'm going to label the people as such…" she places an A under the child, a B under the first adult, a C under the second adult, and a D under the elderly man, "So, by your hypothesis, A=B, because B can remember, internally, A. That's fine. Furthermore, C=D for the same reason. However, C clearly does not equal D, so does that mean they're not the same person? But they clearly are, so something is terribly wrong. It seems as if we need to define the person based off the addition of all previous stages – called the Person-Stage," she drew four rectangles on the board, all connected lengthwise, "This first rectangle is me as a baby. The next one is me as a toddler. The next one is me as a juvenile. And this last one is me, currently, as a teenager. What defined me way back here as a toddler will be different than what defines me today, but the addition of the baby, toddler, and juvenile stages help define the teenager stage I'm in right now. Each one of these states is very much a temporal – that is, time – state. Everyone with me so far?"

"So… the person doesn't need to remember their past?" Gendo spoke slightly softer than usual.

"Correct. With these Person-Stages, I don't need to remember my baby stage for it to influence me. But now comes something much more problematic – hypothetically speaking, let's say a clone of me is created with all the same memories, emotions, and attitudes that I have. She's an exact copy of me, even at the psychological level… who's the real Asuka?" a small sliver of silence before Rei broke in.

"The one who actually experienced the memories."

"Any arguments with that?" silence, "Shinji, I'm disappointed in you, I-"

"Begging the question, I just didn't want to seem smug," they, once again, exchanged a smirk.

"Yes, he's right. That argument is known as begging the question, and it's ridiculous. I asked you who the real Asuka was, and Rei told me the real Asuka is the one who experienced it… in other words, the real Asuka is the real Asuka. You're using a conclusion as a premise. Here's a simpler example; a banana is curved and yellow, therefore it is yellow. See how a premise was the same as the conclusion? So if I say that there are two Asuka's, one of them is real, and one of them is the clone, and you conclude that the real one is the real one, you haven't gotten very far, now have you? No, I need a definition for the real Asuka that doesn't _include_ the real Asuka. Anyone except Shinji?" a few moments of silence before she crossed her arms in annoyance, "Really?" Kaji claps his hands and smiles.

"A domino effect! It's what you were just talking about with the stages. The real Asuka is the one who has all of those Person-Stages, not the one who thinks she does. The clone would believe that she had those stages, but she doesn't really," his smile quickly faded when Asuka didn't reply right away, "… right?"

"Oh no, you're right, I was just wondering how you came to that conclusion without help. But yes, that's exactly correct. Now, as the final lesson for the day, I want to talk about identity between duality," she picks up a tissue box on her desk, "Misato has a tissue box exactly like this one at home. Who would say that those two boxes are identical?" most people raised their hands, "Are they exactly the same?" most people nodded. With a straight face, she pulled a lighter out of her pocket, lit the box on fire, and dropped it on the tile flooring, "What about now?"

"Well now it's a hazard…" someone muttered through the crowd of people.

"Are they exactly the same?" everyone shook their heads, "Why not? Sure, it looks drastically different, but it's still essentially the same type of stuff. By the way, just to clear this up, anyone who raised their hands before were wrong. Very wrong. There are two types of identical things – identical in properties and identical in substance. If I have X and Y, and they're identical in properties, then they'd be, for instance, the two boxes of tissues. If I have X and Y, and they're identical in substance, then they'd be, for instance, the _same _box of tissues. This is why we're having trouble defining a person as a single individual! A person at age five and the same person at age forty are clearly not identical in either properties (that is, exactly similar) or substance (that is, exactly the same). I want you all to think about that for next time, alright? You're dismissed," she sat down at the desk and began flipping through an old college notebook, "Oh Shinji," she muttered as the boy passed by, "I want you to stay after. You need some more… advanced training."

A/N – Sorry for the massive delay everyone. I've been swamped with midterms (taking them myself and grading my students'), but I'm back for the most part, if not a little brain dead. As always, if you have a question, feel free to ask me in a review. The next lesson will continue on with the idea of identity. See you all later!


	6. Brains, Vats, and German

Chapter 6: Brains, Vats, and German

"Hey!" making the technician squeal, Asuka slams her hand on Maya's desk and stares down with a smile. This was the first word she's said since class started five minutes ago, and people were beginning to wonder if she went insane. They weren't wondering anymore, "How do you know you're here right now?" massive silence as the smile persisted, "How do you know you're not some brain in a vat, hooked up to a computer that's making you believe all of this is reality?"

"Didn't we already go over this?" a lone, unknown voice from the back.

"Yes, but not in depth. I've been trying to figure out how to explain this to you people for a while now, and I think I have it. In John Pollock's essay _A Brain in a Vat_, he proposes the idea no person can ever be fully sure in the knowledge that they are not a brain in a vat, and that the world that they perceive is no more than a sophisticated program. He goes about this by telling a story, but in essence, his point is that you can't use proofs of an external world within your world if you are, indeed, a brain in a vat, for then you would have no concept of the true external world, as that would lie beyond the realm that the computer has created for you. I, however, feel that I have disproved this possibility, but let me see if you people can tell me what's wrong with these other contradictions," she holds up one hand, "Here's a hand," she holds up the other hand, "And here's a different hand. Therefore, the external world must exist, and I am therefore not a brain in a vat."

"That's ridiculous! The computer would make you think you have hands," Kaji yelled from the back.

"Very good. Okay then, tell me if my proof makes sense to you. Existence beyond the mind is quite a hesitant subject, as even if the brain in a vat theory is proven to be false, there are still individuals with damaged (physical) brains that cause their (nonphysical) minds to perceive falsehoods. An example would be of a schizophrenic individual – they fully believe that voices are talking to them, when in reality no such thing is happening. However, these are physical examples, which prove to be quite impossible to use when attempting to prove or disprove Pollock's argument. Instead, one may find it easier to use an argument based off of reductio ad absurdum. Anyone care to refresh our memories on what that is?"

"You disprove something by first assuming that it's false," Shinji, who already thought of this topic, sat bored, twiddling his pencil.

"Very good. Here's a simple example; I see a cat, and it's orange. I want to prove that it's orange, so I start by saying 'the cat is brown', and go from there. So, now on with my disproof. First, let us state that Pollock's theory is not only possible, but is, in fact, correct. Everything an individual feels, sees, tastes, and so on, will be no more than the product of the computer's program. If, for some reason, the brain in the vat becomes aware of the fact that they are a brain in a vat, then the person must now begin to doubt everything they supposedly knew – family, friends, lovers, enemies, and the like. If this were to happen to the person, then every fact they once held dear will be thrown out the window: including facts of a priori as well as of a posteriori. They knew of their family through a posteriori knowledge; they met their mother, father, and grandparents on a first person basis, all of which now they are forced to assume were false. However, upon deeper consideration, their knowledge of a priori will also be under debate."

"While in high school, the individual may have learned of Newton's second law of force, in that force is equivalent to the product of mass and acceleration. The person has never seen numbers flying off the object as it fell to the ground, so they simply assume its truth on the basis of a prior knowledge. The same goes for simple math – they learned before grade school that two threes make six, though they never literally saw numbers come together. Now, for whatever hypothetical reason, their brain is lifted from the vat and put back into the original body they had before the procedure. They quickly discover that all their a priori knowledge was completely false; force is equivalent to the product of mass and the inverse of acceleration, two threes make zero, and so on. All of this math is proved in much higher mathematics now that he is in the real world. The entire human sum of knowledge that the individual had access to while in the computer was conceived as true by him, but it was no more than a sophisticated program of lies. Everyone with me so far?" everyone nods, "Good."

"The person lives their life, gains a degree in physics at a local university, and understands this world around them perfectly. Shortly after graduating, he wakes up to find that his brain has once again be lifted from the vat and put into the original body – in other words, the world where he earned his degree in physics was also a computer program. The new, real world has an entirely new set of physical laws that apply, and he soon finds that both formulas for force he once knew were wrong. At this point, the person must doubt everything about themselves and the world around them. They can't ever know what is true, what is false, and what lies in the gray area. Quite the horrible feeling, isn't it?" a short pause of silence before Maya cuts in with a shaking voice.

"S-So… you don't exist?"

"Jeez, calm down, I told you I'm disproving this. Following the idea of reductio ad absurdum, first assume that Pollock is true. This leads one to believe that absolutely every bit of knowledge they could ever possess has the possibility of being false, and that they have no power on the proof of any knowledge. From here, they would naturally deny any and all supposed-facts about life. This, naturally, leads to monism. A definition of monism may be in order. Most are familiar with the terms monotheism, polytheism, and henotheism as the belief in one god (such as Islam), the belief in many gods (such as Hinduism), and the belief in many gods as one (such as Christianity), respectively. Monism, however, denies the presence of any god whatsoever, and even beyond that, denies that anything exists at all. A monist essentially believes in almost a Nirvana – which is countless souls as one – wherein each individual soul only perceives the supposed world around them because they will it to happen. In other words, there is only a keyboard because my soul wills it to be there. They believe all is one, and one is all. However, one need not truly believe in monism to be a monist. If a person truly accepts Pollock's claims, then they are then, naturally, forced to believe in the possibility that all things they know are false. If they come to this point, then they are essentially monists – they are unable to completely accept anything and doubt everything, therefore they accept the possibility of a monist universe. They can very well be devout Christians, but with the belief of everything being false within their minds, no matter how small, they are, at heart, monists. Any questions so far?" a shaking hand belonging to an unnamed face in the back appears.

"U-Um… so, basically, monism is stating that nothing but a cluster of souls exists?"

"Eh… sort of, yes. See, calling it a cluster is misleading, because that would imply that it's divisible. What I'm talking about is indivisible; we're all the same soul, but are many souls. Yeah, it complicated, but just take it as a matter of faith. Here is my argument," Asuka turns to the whiteboard and writes down five numbers.

_i. Pollock's theory within A Brain in a Vat has the possibility of being true_

_ ii. I am then forced to deny everything I ever encounter_

_ iii. I deny everything, therefore I am a monist by definition_

_ iv. I am a monist, and therefore I deny the possibility of A Brain in a Vat_

_ v. Therefore, A Brain in a Vat must be false_

"In short, if you even slightly believe in Pollock's story, then you have to be a monist, and if that's the case, you deny the theory itself, which leads to a contradiction. It's a fairly simple disproof, really, but elegant none the less. That's actually all I have to say on that subject, so before I move on, are there any questions?" not a single movement, "Okay then, good. Now, put your thinking caps on, because this is where it gets intense. How many of you consider yourselves Christians?" a good majority of people raise their hands, "Well then, before I move on, let me make something clear – I am _not, not, not_ trying to disprove God. Understand? I'm just trying to understand his attributes, assuming he exists. So don't get your panties in a bunch."

"M-Ms. Shikinami?" Asuka turns away from the whiteboard with a sigh and looks at Maya.

"Yes?" Ritsuko is honestly attempting to harness the girl's voice in order to cut diamonds.

"You keep telling us what others believe, but… what do _you_ believe?" Asuka crossed her arms and leaned back on the whiteboard.

"I stopped believing in God when my mother took a month's worth of Valium and tried to give me a handful, and I reasoned my belief when I was in college. I accept the possibility that God exists, and I have also reasoned what he'd be like… needed at one point, but useless now, and also kind of a bastard. Any more irrelevant questions?" not a sound, "Good, because what I believe couldn't matter less. You're here to develop your own beliefs. Back to my lecture, we'll be talking about God's actions and whether or not we have free will. Does anyone know what a dilemma is?" a few awkward glances between students, but not a word, "I'm sure you thought you knew what it was. A dilemma is a set of two lemmas – that is, a stalemated argument. Here are our two lemmas," she turns to the whiteboard and writes _Free will exists_ near the top-right and _God exists_ near the top-left, "For this argument, I want you all to assume free will exists. Do not think about God, or Jesus, or your Aunt Maggie. Just think about free will. Can someone give me an operational definition?"

"The ability, but not necessarily the desire, to do what one wants, when one wants," Rei, staring down at her notebook with a pencil frozen in place, answers.

"Very good. I don't think we need to go over an operational definition of God, I believe that we've beaten that dead horse enough. Shinji, join me up here please," she took her place under _Free will exists_ as he made his way up, "By some miracle, he has managed to surpass all of you in these classes. Because of that, he and I are going to have a little debate – I assume free will exists, and he assumes God exists," an oddly confident boy takes his place on the opposite side of the board, "After you."

"God created Man, Word, and the world. He is Man, Word, and the world. In His wisdom, he granted all men free will, as humans without free will are nothing but puppets. It is because of this free will that you have been able to reason Him out of your life, Ms. Shikinami," even she raised her eyebrows in disbelief.

"Wow, not bad. Just to help you out, I will be using contradiction to help prove my side… is that alright?" he simply nods, "Great. Would you say that your god is all-knowing?" once again, a nod, "So he knows that I'll burn in hell for not believing in him, correct?" a nod, "If he is all-knowing, then he knew I would burn since before I was born. However, if he knew absolutely everything about me and, indeed, everyone else, then how can you call that free will?"

"It's the same way that intelligent creatures know what lesser creatures will do. If I put a plate of bratwurst in front of you, I know you'd eat it. That doesn't make what you did any less of a free will choice," a few muffled gasps from the audience, "In simpler terms – if I dangle a rat in front of a snake, I know it will eat it. The snake certainly could have turned it down, but I knew it wouldn't. The same goes for God."

"Not a bad argument, but it's flawed. See, you didn't _know_ that the snake would eat it. You have a strong feeling, since you've seen that same snake eat the rat a hundred times before, but you simply don't know with complete certainty. If I made a remote control car turn left with the remote, I knew that it would turn – because it has no free will. If God exists and He knows that I'll, for instance, jump off a cliff today, then it wasn't free will. It was pre-destination. So, actually, teacher is going to make a correction," she walks over and leans over him, erasing '_exists_' and replacing it with '_is all knowing_', "There. Because he certainly could exist and not know what I'll do next," Shinji stares up at what she wrote for a few moments before speaking, while still looking at the text.

"Asuka, tell me, why do you think God can be explained in human terms?"

"Because everything must in order for it to have value. If God does exist but didn't give us the capabilities to know Him, then that's a pretty useless God. I've gone over this in the past, can we stick to the lesson?"

"But I am. Did you love your mother?" she crosses her arms, "Well?"

"I was a child, of course I did. What child can-"

"Prove it," complete silence, "What child can't love their mother… is that what you were about to say? I'm not about to debate that, but see, I don't understand it. That's why I can't debate it. Show me that you loved her. If you can't, then it doesn't have much value, does it?" she shakes her head with a smile.

"Someone watched an old movie, didn't they? 'Contact', was it? Look, that argument just doesn't work. You can't say 'We can't reason God because it's beyond us!'. That's oversimplification," the girl was clearly getting annoyed.

"But I'm not. You _can_ absolutely reason God – you've shown us that he's at least partly evil, that he's ultra-powerful, and so on, but you can't reason that he doesn't exist. Logic doesn't follow something that is beyond logic; it's like trying to spell with mathematics. So, back to my question – prove that you loved your mother. I want to know it, not just believe it."

"I can't," she sighs, "It's beyond logic. Is that what you wanted to hear? I admit, there is no valid argument against what you're saying, but I stand by the fact that it's a weak argument nonetheless," with that, Shinji makes his way back to his seat. Some could have sworn they saw her lip quiver.

"Then I believe that we're done here, Professor. Stalemate," she stands and the front, arms folded and eyes closed, for nearly a full minute before replying.

"_Vater: Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht? Kind: Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig mit Kron und Schweif? Vater: Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif_. That was Erlking, an old German poem about a son who sees a demon wishing to take him away, and the father who reasons such foolishness away. In the end, the son dies, and the father never understands why," she finally opens her eyes, looking at the wall in the back, "I've taught you all enough. Good night," the silence of the room was only broken by the slamming door.

A/N – Sorry for the extremely late update… I doubt any continuous readers are still here! Regardless, I thought I owed it to you to have an ending to this. I have to say, this received _much_ better reviews than expected. Would you all like another series of lectures (on a different topic)? I would continue on with philosophy, but anything much more advanced than this will be too hard to convey in a fic. Let me know, and I'll see what I can do.

A/A/N – For those of you interested, the poem was called Erlkönig. When I studied in Germany, that poem scared me to freaking death. The story is a little eerie, yes, but it loses some of the power when it's translated outside of German. The wording and phrasing in German is just terrifying – try to look up a reading of it and you'll see what I mean. Tschüs!


	7. Relevancy: Intercourse

Chapter 7: Intercourse

"And, above all, you must remember that sex is only between a married man and woman. Save it until marriage, kids," predictably, a certain European raised her hand.

"A man and woman, you say? Also, married? Explain to me why each one of those things is required."

She was soon asked to leave the classroom.

While the school certainly did not have a sexual education program in place, the instructor felt the need to somehow make it to that tangent from a trigonometry lesson. This, in itself, annoyed Soryu, but the pretentions of heterosexuality and marriage just annoyed her.

"You know everyone thinks you're gay now, right?" he wasn't even surprised to see her watching television on the sofa as he walked in, "A few guys cried after school."

"Not my problem," a change of the channel, "Don't tell me you agree with him, please. I know you believe in God and all, but come on, don't make me go into this."

"Oh no, I completely agree with the homosexuality part, but not really the marriage part. I don't care about the sexes of the people, but they should be married regardless. And I take it you think differently?" she took a breath to respond, "Of course you do…"

"Oh shut up. Sex has absolutely nothing to do with love, and since marriage implies love, I don't see the correlation. I certainly don't have to love a man to sleep with him, now do I?" with a sigh, he fell back onto the chair across the room, "Look, I can see why loving couples have sex, and why it's been reserved for that. I do. It just doesn't make any _logical_ sense. Sex is a physical activity, and relating that to an emotion is a fallacy."

"But sex _is_ the manifestation of love, so it does make sense."

"Untrue. Me hitting you is a manifestation of me being mad – if I don't hit you, I'm not mad at you. I wouldn't do it for no reason. However, I could have sex with someone – be it male or female – without having the slightest feeling for them. Therefore, having sex isn't the manifestation of love."

"Fine then, what do you think it is?" she smirks and stares off.

"Just great… look, sex feels good, regardless of what these classes try to tell us. Sex is the manifestation of feeling good. That. Is. It. If it didn't feel good, then the species as a whole would probably die out over the course of a couple generations – there has to be an initiative to make us want it, so evolution made it feel great. If you want to slap on 'love' as a prerequisite for it, then that's your problem."

"Okay, then let's take love out of it. The point of sex is to reproduce – the two people should _at least_ be compatible if they plan on raising children together. Yes, children can be raised by a single parent, but why do that if there is another option? If love isn't present, there at least needs to be compatibility."

"If you plan on reproducing. Your theory goes out the window when you start talking about birth control and condoms. I have full intentions of getting my tubes tied when I turn eighteen, but I certainly don't plan on not having sex anymore. I would be a _horrible_ mother, and I realize that, but that doesn't make sex any less pleasurable," he sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"Fine then, if sex is open to anyone, why haven't we slept together?" a pillow hits his head, "I'm not asking! I'm just following your logic. If sex is that meaningless, you should have slept with every guy at school by now."

"No, because that's just being a slut, and I haven't slept with you because you're Asian," he raises an eyebrow, and she holds two fingers together and squints her eyes, "Don't lie to yourself, size matters. But we're getting off the point here. You asked why I don't just sleep with everyone – that's because you're right to a small degree. See, you have to know a person before you sleep with them. You know, be good friends. This is to get a sense of their character – to know that they won't try to pull anything or that they don't live in a manner that would promote… well, frankly, diseases."

"So then imagine a world without diseases. None at all. You could bone Gene Simmons and wouldn't have to worry about a thing. Would your opinion change?"

"Only slightly, yes. I suppose in that world, I wouldn't have to be nearly as cautious, but I would still have to be careful for the actual character of the person. Okay, for example, there's not a chance on Earth that I'd ever even consider Toji – he's too rash, and makes decisions based on a second's notice. That's not very safe, right? But someone like Rei; I know she thinks things through completely, so that would be okay," his eyes got wide, "Don't tell me we're having this conversation now…"

"You brought it up!"

"There is nothing logically wrong with sex, regardless of what gender the other person is. It feels good either way."

"That doesn't mean I'd sleep with a guy! Asuka, are you…?"

"Human, yes, quite. A human who has reasoned there is nothing wrong with taking what's available. However, I can see why you acted the way you did – males are extremely naturalistic creatures. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. Women are smarter; males can multitask two things at once, women can do about fifteen; the average IQ of a female is twenty points higher than a male; females develop reasoning skills at an earlier age. Those are all just facts that add up to a smarter, in general, sex."

"What does that have to do with _anything_?"

"It means that males can't separate sex from just pleasure. It has to be a woman there for them to actually enjoy it, unless they're gay or bi. To women, it doesn't matter too much, so long as there's a climax. Yes, most of us prefer men – myself included – but there are definite up-sides to a female companion. I won't get into that, but my point is that, to me, the point of sex is to feel good. That can come from a man or a woman, I don't care, so long as I trust them."

"Fine, I see that point, but I still think it's for marriage. What you're saying makes absolute perfect sense if we were wild animals – we are not. We're reasoning being that you've oversimplified to walking phalluses and vulva. It's ridiculous. Love is a side effect, I understand that. Evolution decided that our children are better raised with two parents, so it developed a means to keep the mates together. Love. Fine, I accept that. But that's what you're not doing – accepting it. Nature intended for us to love, and the only reason for love is to keep people together. That's it. There is absolutely no evolutionary upside to love other than to help the child grow up in a better environment."

"Wow, not a bad argument, but I disagree with your end result. I completely agree about the evolution, but your conclusion is flawed. Why would evolutionary traits that went on millions of years ago have any importance now? Look, take this example: next time you're with Misato speeding down the freeway, stick your head out the window and try to breathe. Hard, isn't it? For some reason, your lungs just won't inflate. It's an adaptation to water – evolution saw a bunch of humans drowning whenever they went swimming, so it built in a reflex that makes it nearly impossible to inhale when something is hitting your face that resembles water. Drowning isn't all that big of a deal anymore – we can communicate how to swim, and most of us can do it by the third grade. So why have that adaptation?"

"Because it's still useful! Just because we don't use it as often doesn't mean that it's useless. I'm sorry Asuka, I'm not budging on this one, sex should be between people who lo-"

"Want to have sex?"

"Absolutely."

"See? You're over there preaching that this is only between a married couple, and you would jump into bed with anything that has a pulse if it let you. That's hypocritical – at least I live by my ideals," he sighs and rubs his eyes.

"I also know that we _should_ be sinless, but that's just so unrealistic that it's not worth pursuing. I still hold by that sex should be between a married couple, but would I follow that? Probably not. Definitely not, if given the opportunity. But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't wait. So, that offer…"

"Was there to prove a point. Keep dreaming, lover boy," with a pat on his head, she walks by into the kitchen.

A/N – Something came to me – applicable arguments. Pretty much everything discussed previously dealt with abstract concepts that, at the end of the day, don't matter too much. So I'll put up a relevant discussion with philosophical undertones (sometimes very undertone) that should get you thinking. Assume all of this happens after the last class, just for ease of reading. Anyone care to guess which side of this argument I'm on?

A/A/N – These will be considerably shorter than previous chapters, because I only have 45 minutes to write them between classes… I ran out of books to read, so I'm doing this. Instead of grading or studying. Who says I'm bad at time management?


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